August 2015

Exhibitions

Rupprecht Matthies’ ¿Being Home? is a community-inspired, interactive artwork that grows with each installation. In 2009 and 2011, Matthies collaborated with immigrants at Denver-area community organizations, including the African Community Center, the Emily Griffith Opportunity School, and Centro San Juan Diego, to gather words evocative of notions of home. The resulting words—transformed into mobiles, pillows, and wall pieces—are in 13 languages including English, Spanish, Arabic, and Kareni.

Sovereign: Independent Voices highlights the work of three leading American Indian contemporary artists, Kent Monkman, Rose Simpson, and Virgil Ortiz, who have received international acclaim. These artists challenge people to think more broadly about the place of native artists in the contemporary art world through a fusion of historic techniques with contemporary styles and ideas. The included works reflect meditations on the self and native histories in a variety of media, including painting, sculptural ceramics, and multimedia works.

Collectibles, a showcase of works on paper from the Denver Art Museum's collection, demonstrates that drawings are, indeed, collectible. That is, that they are worth acquiring and looking at—from up close and far away, in various arrangements, again and again.

Barbara Bosworth’s photography explores nature and memory through calm reflection upon places that hold deep personal and social meaning. Using a large format 8x10 camera, Bosworth makes exquisite prints that immerse the viewer in the scene and imbue details—fleeting effects of light and subtle traces of human or natural activity—with arresting presence.

In Bloom explores the development of nineteenth-century French floral still-life painting, and features about 60 paintings by Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and others.

The 4 Seasons of Veronica Read (2002) is a four-screen video installation filmed over the course of a year, which centers around the remarkable life of Veronica Read, an Englishwoman with a special passion for Hippeastrum, commonly known as amaryllis.

With over 900 Hippeastrum bulbs in her two-bedroom house, Veronica Read's obsession with these flowers is all consuming. Masquerading as a documentary about the Hippeastrum flower bulb, the work is actually a portrait of a woman wholly devoted to the care of these bulbs, which contain the hope of flowering only once a year.

Castiglione: Lost Genius—Masterworks on Paper from the Royal Collection features 90 of the finest drawings, etchings and monotypes by the master draftsman, painter, and printmaker Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione. A forgotten master from the Italian baroque, Castiglione was a self-proclaimed genius, whose artworks entered the Royal Collection in 1762. The exhibition explores Castiglione’s mastery of art and how he produced brilliant works despite his turbulent private life that prevented him from becoming more widely known.

Photographer Alec Soth studies the habits and rituals of ordinary Americans, finding moments of self-absorption and vulnerability that are specific to the people he photographs, yet somehow common to human experience. Taking cues from the Depression-era documentary projects of the 1930s, Soth set out to create a state-by-state record of American life in the early twenty-first century. Photographed over the course of a 2013 road trip, Colorado Dispatch presents the core of Soth’s work from the Centennial State.

Experience one of the world's premier collections of Native American art. Reopened on January 30, 2011, our remodeled galleries of American Indian and Northwest Coast art focus on artists and their creations, revealing the hand and eye of each individual artist.

Nampeyo: Excellence by Name is on view in the American Indian art galleries. Nampeyo is recognized as one of the greatest ceramicists of the 20th century. This exhibition traces the full spectrum of the famed Hopi artist’s career, highlighting key elements of her innovative forms and designs and the work of successive generations of her family.

The 30 artworks in this exhibition reveal the versatility of lacquer as a medium used by Japanese artists to create containers, trays, plaques, braziers, and screens. A wide range of techniques are represented to demonstrate how lacquer was used during the last century to create objects of enduring beauty. The selected artworks reflect the changing styles and tastes of successive generations of lacquer artists who produced designs based on plants, animals, and other elements of nature.

Depth and Detail: Carved Bamboo from China, Japan, and Korea showcases a variety of carved, cut, incised, and etched bamboo objects. The exhibition demonstrates how artists used bamboo, carving deeply through it to achieve different colors and textures. The intricate decoration of the items on view includes religious imagery as well as people, animals, birds, insects, plants, and landscapes that tell stories or have symbolic meaning.

Angel is a video that explores the theme of religion and features Wallinger playing Blind Faith, his sightless alter ego. The artist is seen repeatedly reciting—backwards—the first five verses of St. John's Gospel from the King James version of the Bible. The spectator is asked to consider religious belief in a realm beyond the visible.

In partnership with Museo de las Americas, we celebrate the Mexican modernist master Gunther Gerzso (1915−2000). The Denver Art Museum highlights some of the artist's extraordinary paintings from 1960−1981 while the Museo offers a rich selection of his works on paper in Gunther Gerzso: A Mexican Master.

Following nearly one year of conservation treatment, an Italian masterwork discovered in the Denver Art Museum storage is on view. Since spring 2012, we have been writing updates about behind-the-scenes discoveries and decisions related to the restoration.

From around the world and across centuries, more than 20 tapestry-woven wall hangings, rugs, furniture covers, garments, and sculptural forms illustrate the creative possibilities of this technique. The selection includes historic European tapestries made by large ateliers, twentieth-century collaborations between artist and weaver, and works by solo artist-weavers who use tapestry as their creative medium.

New York-based artist Francisco Alvarado-Juárez has transformed the Precourt Discovery Hall into a whimsical environment for family audiences using recycled paper from thousands of grocery paper bags, painted and cut by hand. Created in collaboration with local community groups, the seaweed-like bags camouflage paintings of insects—partially hidden by the protruding bags—creating another opportunity for discovery as visitors move through the space.

Gifts, promised gifts, and works that the museum purchased over the last seven years are the focus of our next rotation in the modern and contemporary galleries.

The collection is the principal artery of a museum. It’s here where the idea for the next big show might be sparked, where artists and amateurs alike find their inspiration and a museum shapes its identity. Especially in modern and contemporary art, a continuous and strategically growing collection becomes the showcase of our time. It reflects who and where we are now and tells future generations about us.

Virgil Ortiz is an internationally renowned ceramicist, fashion designer, and graphic artist from Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico. He uses contemporary art to blend historic events with futuristic elements. Set against Ortiz’s graphic murals, this exhibition features 31 clay figures and invites visitors to immerse themselves in a storyline that Ortiz created that begins with the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. This is the first exhibition of his work to visually tell the whole story.

During the Spanish Colonial period in Latin America (1521–1850), precious gold and silver were crafted into elegant jewelry then embellished with emeralds from Colombia, coral from Mexico, and pearls from Venezuela. Wanting to demonstrate their wealth and status, people were painted wearing their finest dress and elaborate jewelry.

Cubism was the most revolutionary and influential movement of the twentieth century. After Renaissance artists perfected the device of perspective, a painting was thought of as a window into the world. But cubist painters understood that canvases themselves were painted objects. They also rejected the idea that an object rendered with traditional perspective was any more “real” than an abstraction of that object on the flat surface.

Celebrated for his multidisciplinary approach to art and design, Herbert Bayer called painting "the continuous link connecting all the facets of my work." The paintings presented in the exhibition give us a window into the personal side of this versatile artist.

Strong Statements features six thought-provoking works, each by a contemporary native artist. The work of Melanie Yazzie, David P. Bradley, Harry Fonseca, James Luna, Jesse Cooday, and Judith Lowry challenges stereotypes and explores issues that affect American Indians including corruption and violence in the casino industry, racism, addiction, and questions of identity.

This reinstallation of the Joan & George Anderman Gallery of Oceanic Art offers a glimpse at the variety of creative design and ingenious construction possible through the unique medium of bark cloth (or tapa) used across the Pacific. Techniques and styles for decorating vary from island group to island group. Painted, printed, and beaten patterns decorate supple and sometimes expansive bark cloths. Elaborate masks made with tapa stretch over rigid stick or cane frames.

Tours

Expert docents introduce you to a selection of the museum’s most noteworthy objects. Visit both the North and Hamilton buildings and discover a diversity of artworks from across time and around the world.

Docent-led member tours of In Bloom will be available at 1 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the course of the exhibition.

In Bloom explores the development of 19th-century French floral still-life painting, and features about 60 paintings by Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Vincent Van Gogh, and others.

$2 per member; limited by membership level.

Meet for the tour on level 1 of the Hamilton Building, by the glass wall that divides the ticketing area and The Shop.

Occurs every Tuesday through August 18, 2015 . Also includes August 27, 2015.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - 2:00pm – 2:30pm

Local floral artist Arthur Williams will bring museum spaces to life with his unique floral designs during his residency. On August 4, 11, 18 and 27, visitors can Tag Along as he works in the galleries from 2-2:30 pm, doing everything from refreshing arrangements to installation of new work.

Williams will be in a pop-up floral shop on level 2 of the North Building from noon to 4 pm.

Meet for the Tag Alongs in the level 1 elevator lobby of the Hamilton Building.

You can tell a lot about a piece of furniture just by looking at its legs. Curatorial assistant Kati Woock highlights six chairs made between 1675 and 1904 and what the legs of these chairs can tell us about the periods in which they were made.

Conversations with Curators feature lively discussions with different curators on the first Friday of the month. All Conversations are free with general admission and no reservations are needed.

Art & About tours are designed for visitors with early-stage Alzheimer’s or dementia and their care partners. Experience and discuss art together on a tour led by a specially trained guide on the second Thursday of the month.

August 13: Tapestries

September 10: Flower Arrangements (meet in the lobby of the North Building)

On the third Saturday of the month, expert docents introduce you to a selection of the museum’s most noteworthy objects. Visit both the North and Hamilton buildings and discover a diversity of artworks from across time and around the world. The 45-minute tour is interpreted in ASL.

Lectures

In conjunction with TypeCon2015, Design Council is pleased to host a special presentation by the information designer Nicholas Felton. Felton spends much of his time thinking about data, charts and our daily routines. The author of many Personal Annual Reports that condense the events of a year into a tapestry of maps, graphs, and statistics, Felton was also one of the lead designers of Facebook’s timeline and the co-founder of Daytum.

Choreographer and dance historian Jairo Heli from Guadalajara, Jalisco breaks down the movements (and the history) of dance practiced in Mexico’s ancient societies.

Included in general admission; members and youth 18 and younger free.

All adult programs are accessible to people with disabilities. To arrange for individual accommodations or access services, please make your request at the time of registration. Wheelchairs are available to borrow free of charge on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Occurs every Tuesday through August 18, 2015 . Also includes August 27, 2015.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015 - 12:00pm – 4:00pm

Local floral artist Arthur Williams will bring museum spaces to life with his unique floral designs during his residency. On August 4, 11, 18 and 27, Williams will be working on his gallery installations and engaging with visitors in a pop-up floral shop on level 2 of the North Building.

From 2 to 2:30 pm, visitors can Tag Along as he works in the galleries, doing everything from refreshing arrangements to installation of new work.

See local artist Rita Flores de Wallace at work, demonstrating the art of Mexican paper and felt flowers. Learn about Mexican culture and tradition, and try your hand at creating your own colorful bloom.

Decorate a flower pot and plant a wildflower seed in this family-friendly, drop-in workshop with local art educator Ryan Mathews of the Blue Ribbon Arts Initiative.

August 11 and 12, 1-4 pm each day

Included in general admission; members and youth 18 and younger free.

All adult programs are accessible to people with disabilities. To arrange for individual accommodations or access services, please make your request at the time of registration. Wheelchairs are available to borrow free of charge on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Learn innovative ways to use flowers in cooking in demonstrations by local chefs.

July 12, 14, 15, 16, 17 & 18

August 23, 25, 26, 27, 28 & 29

11 am – noon each day, except for August 28 (7–8 pm)

Included in general admission; members and youth 18 and younger free.

All adult programs are accessible to people with disabilities. To arrange for individual accommodations or access services, please make your request at the time of registration. Wheelchairs are available to borrow free of charge on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Throughout August, DAM members will receive 20 percent off sand pictures by Rainbow Vision. Other weekly special offers available onsite. Additional member 10 percent discount does not apply to weekly specials.

(Re)kindle your creative passions in these informal sketching sessions on the second Tuesday of every month. Take inspiration from the galleries with the help of a DAM art instructor and tackle a new drawing topic every month.

Occurs every month on February, April, June, August, October and December on the second Friday

Friday, August 14, 2015 - 10:00am – 1:00pm

Get hands on with art! Tactile Tables are regularly scheduled, bimonthly opportunities to experience art in a hands-on way, facilitated by specially trained docents. These tables are free with admission and are open to all visitors who desire a multisensory, hands-on experience with art, including those visitors who are blind or have low vision

Tactile Tables are offered on the second Friday and Saturday of every other month.

Occurs every month on February, April, June, August, October and December on the second Saturday , except August 8, 2015 . Also includes August 15, 2015.

Saturday, August 15, 2015 - 4:45pm – 7:45pm

Get hands on with art! Tactile Tables are regularly scheduled, bimonthly opportunities to experience art in a hands-on way, facilitated by specially trained docents. These tables are free with admission and are open to all visitors who desire a multisensory, hands-on experience with art, including those visitors who are blind or have low vision.

Tactile Tables are offered on the second Friday and Saturday of every other month.

Pick up a pencil and spark your creative interests in these informal writing sessions. With the help of a DAM instructor, try your hand at a new writing topic every month, while visiting various museum galleries.

Meet in the El Pomar Grand Atrium of the Hamilton Building, level 1. All experience levels welcome, bring your own supplies or use one of our notebooks.

Take in the scientific side of flowers with a look at botany, bees, and blooms at Untitled: Cross-Pollinate.

At our Untitled Final Fridays, you can get an offbeat art fix, pick up a creative skill, and convene with local movers and makers. Top it off with a cash bar, munchies, and a dose of the unexpected and you’ve got a great night out.

College students with valid ID receive 2-for-1 admission to Untitled Final Fridays.